Transcript Traditonal Gothic Literature

Gothic Literature
Traditional , American, and Modern
Sources for this presentation include: The Gothic Experience, Gothic Undercurrents,
Elements of the Gothic Novel, and Gothic, Novel, and Romance: Brief Definitions
Traditional European
Gothic Literature
Definition
Gothic literature is a style that
explores humanity's fear and
fascination with the unknown.
Although it originated in Germany, it
was revived in the 1700's and was
popular through the early nineteenth
century. Authors of such novels set
their stories in the medieval period,
often in a gloomy castle replete with
dungeons, subterranean passages,
and sliding panels, and made
plentiful use of ghosts, mysterious
disappearances,
and
other
sensational and supernatural
occurrences; their principal aim was
to evoke chilling terror by exploiting
mystery, cruelty, and a variety of
horrors. The term "gothic" has also
been extended to denote a type of
fiction which lacks the medieval
setting but develops a brooding
atmosphere of gloom or terror,
represents events which are
uncanny, or macabre, or melodramatically violent, and often deals
with aberrant psychological states.
(Definition adapted from M. H. Abrams's A Glossary of Literary
Terms: Eighth Edition, pp. 117-118 and “The Black Cat as Gothic
Literature” by Caleb Guad)
An atmosphere of gloom, terror, or mystery
An exotic setting isolated in time or space from
contemporary life, often a ruined mansion or castle.
The building may be associated with past violence and contains
hidden doors, subterranean secret passages, concealed staircases,
and other such features.
Events, often
violent,
terrifying or
macabre,
that cannot be
hidden or
rationalized
despite the
efforts of the
narrator.
A disturbed or unnatural relation
between the orders of things that
are usually separate,
such as life and death, good and evil, dream life and reality, or rationality and madness.
A hidden or double reality beneath the surface of what at first appears to be a single narrative.
The narrative arc of the Gothic story leads to an exposure of what was once hidden, breaking
down the barrier between the surface reality and the reality beneath the surface.
Often a physical barrier symbolizes a
barrier to the information that provides
a key to the truth or explanation of the
events.
Sometimes the truth is revealed through an artifact that breaches the barrier
between what is known and what is unknown: a document telling a family
secret, a key that opens a secret room, or even a creature imprisoned behind
the wall.
An interrupted narrative form
that relies on multiple methods
to tell the tale —
inserted documents, letters, dreams, fragments of the
story told by several narrators
Elements of the uncanny that challenge reality,
including mysterious events
that cause the protagonist to
question the evidence of his
or her senses and the
presence
of
seemingly
supernatural beings.
Traditional Gothic Elements
labyrinths, dark corridors, and winding stairs
a castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not
shadows, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a
flickering candle, or the only source of light failing (a
candle blown out or an electric failure)
ruined buildings which are sinister or which arouse a
pleasing melancholy
extreme landscapes
like rugged mountains
or dark forests
or
icy wastes
and extreme weather
omens and ancestral curses
magic,
supernatural
manifestations, or
the suggestion of
the supernatural
The Villain/Antagoinist
a passion-driven,
willful villain-hero or
villain
The
Heroine/
Protagonist
A woman who is
in distress and
who is often
threatened by a
powerful,
impulsive,
tyrannical male
or entity.
The Hero/Protagonist
“The Faceless One” by Steve Ditko,
1957, This Magazine Is Haunted, #12
a hero whose true identity is revealed by the end of the novel
The Outsider
Whether the stationary figure who represses
his difference, or the wandering figure who
seeks for some kind of salvation, or else the
individual who for whatever reason moves
entirely outside the norm, the outsider is
driven by strange longings and destructive
needs. While everyone else appears sane, he
is insane; while everyone else appears bound
by legalities, he is trying to snap the pitiless
constrictions of the law; while everyone else
seems to lack any peculiarities of taste or
behaviour, he feels only estrangement, sick
longings, terrible surges of power and
devastation. he is beyond the moderating
impulses in society, and he must be punished
for his transgression. He is gloomy and
melancholy, full of self-pity and self-hatred.
from http://missransom.files.wordpress.com/
2012/02/elements_of_the_gothic.pdf
American Gothic literature plunges its
characters into mystery, torment, and fear in
order to pose disturbing questions to our
familiar and comfortable ideas of humanity,
society, and the cosmos.
American Gothic is similar
to traditional European
Gothic in that it evokes an
atmosphere of terror and
a sense of horror, but
does not cross the line
into the kind of graphic
violence of the slasher
film or horror story.
American Gothic Fiction is
a subgenre of Gothic Fiction
American Gothic writers explored the dark side
of nineteenth-century America.
elements specific to American Gothic include:
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rational vs. irrational
puritanism
guilt
strangeness within the
familiar
ghosts
monsters
family misery
interest in the occult
abuse of reason and science
the sentimentalizing of
death
• a sense of darkness at the
edge of the frontier
• fanatical quasi-Christian
religious cults
• ritual murders
• strange motifs like
ventriloquism
• nearly post-apocalyptic
scenarios
• the image of America is a
“ship of state” [a country
that handled like a ship on
course]
Early American Gothic writers were particularly
concerned with frontier wilderness anxiety and
the lasting effects of a Puritanical society.
Background
The roots of American Gothic
concepts lay in a past riddled
with slavery, a fear of racial
mixing (miscegenation), hostile
relations with Native American
Indians whose rituals were
misunderstood, the eventual
killing off of Native Americans,
and the daunting wilderness
present at the American
frontier.
In the late nineteenth-century
America, almost 15 percent of the
population was legally considered
property (there were about 900,000
slaves in 1800 and about 3,200,000 by
1850). Only white, male property
owners could vote.
Women were largely confined
to the home and certainly not
expected to rise to positions
of social authority.
Native Americans were losing most of the power‹--and virtually all of the
land--that they once held. How could all of these conditions exist, many asked,
in the world's one modern nation created with the explicit purpose of
establishing freedom and equality for all?
Puritanism in America occurred approximately
between 1620-1729. Puritans had strict religious
beliefs that many times ended in disastrous
outcomes (such as burning or hanging innocent
people). They believed people were born evil
(something called “original sin”) and that it was
decided at birth whether or not a person would go to
heaven or hell, which was an everlasting fiery
torment. Even if a person did good all of his life, he
would go to hell if it had been predetermined (but of
course, no one had any way of knowing his fate).
Those who were predetermined to go to heaven
might still end up in hell if they sinned just one time.
As a result, Puritans were very concerned with what
should be considered evil, witchcraft, and sinful
(such as playing cards and dancing).
Puritans thought of non-whites as
henchmen for the devil and naturally
evil. These beliefs were further
reinforced by shame and guilt
whenever they had “impure” thoughts
or actions (such as drinking alcohol or
swearing or lying). This created a
lasting impact of doom and gloom in
America. Many
American Gothic
writers responded in their works to
these fears and to the strictness of
Puritanism.
In addition, rapid change was causing anxiety about the
future:
• Where was America heading?
• How could it both grow and retain its unity and
coherence?
• Were the millions of immigrants good for the country,
or did they bring dangerous and contagious influences?
It is this spirit of anxiety, fear, and even despair that
writers in the American Gothic mode tap into.
Elements of
Early American Gothic
American Gothic is
often devoid of castles
and objects which
allude to a civilized
history.
Instead, old houses,
abandoned barns,
isolated towns,
swamps, and forests
replace the castles.
Early settlers were overcome by fear linked to the unexplored
territory which surrounded, and in some cases, engulfed them.
Back in their native United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland), much of the forest had been cut down to make
way for farm land. When they arrived in America they discovered a
land that was enormously larger than their own [Oregon is about
the size of the United Kingdom] with thick forests that had never
been cut down.
Fear of the unknown
stemmed from this
encounter
with
darkness and vastness
because people were
not used to this. Thus,
vast expanses of forest
terrified them, as did
encounters with vast
deserts
and
dark
swamps where one
could easily get lost.
Furthermore, this fear
was intensified since
the wilderness was
filled with Native
Americans,
whom
they thought of as in
league with the devil.
The Dungeons and endless corridors that are a hallmark of
European Gothic are far removed from American Gothic in which
castles are replaced with caves.
The inability of many
Gothic characters to
overcome perversity
by rational thought is
common in American
Gothic. A protagonist
may be sucked into the
realm of madness
because of his or her
preference for the
irrational.
The emergence of the “abhuman” in American Gothic Fiction was closely coupled with
Darwinism, which emerged in 1859, and the Industrial Age (much of the 1800s). The
abhuman is something that appears human in some ways, but is not in others. The vampire,
which was first developed as a creature in Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic novel Dracula, is a
good example of the abhuman, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster (1818).
Ideas of evolution or devolution of a species;
new biological knowledge and technological
advancement caused people to question their
essential humanity. Parallels between humans
and every other living thing on the planet were
made obvious by the aforementioned. This is
manifest in stories like H.P. Lovecraft’s "The
Outsider" and Nicholson Baker's "Subsoil.”
Ghosts and monsters function as the spiritual equivalent
of the abhuman and indicate unseen realities.
Cthulu, sculpture by
Gabe Perna
American Gothic Authors
and Their Protagonists and Themes
• “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving is
perhaps the most famous example of American Colonial
era horror fiction.
• The protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young
Goodman Brown is both a tormented seventeenthcentury Puritan and a representative of America's
heritage of religious intolerance and self-righteousness.
• Charles Brockden Brown and Edgar Allan Poe offer us
characters who may be encountering the supernatural or
may only be experiencing the projections of their own
worst selves, their most base and uncontrollable
prejudices and desires.
• Hawthorne rejects the promise that science will help the
human condition when he tells the story of one researcher's
obsessive and destructive botanical experiment on his
daughter.
• Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Washington
Irving are often grouped together because they portraits of
the human experience by way of horror. Poe accomplished
this through the window of a diseased and depressive
fascination with the morose, Irving with the keen charm of a
masterful storyteller, and Hawthorne with familial bonds to
past abominations like the Salem Witch Trials
• In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays a
woman so oppressed by the patriarchal assumptions of her
husband that she is driven insane
These writers urge us to ask: What is an
American? What are our ideals, and to what
extent does it seem within our power to
realize them? What power, if any, rules us?
How much are we in control of ourselves?
How well do we even know ourselves? To
what extent can we ever be sure of anything?
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique
to American literature that takes place exclusively in
the American South.
Common themes in Southern Gothic literature include:
• deeply flawed characters
• decayed or derelict settings
• other sinister events relating to or coming from
poverty, racism, and violence
It is unlike its parent genre in that it uses these tools not
solely for the sake of suspense, but to explore social
issues and reveal the cultural character of the American
South, with the Gothic elements taking place in a magic
realist context rather than a strictly fantastical one.
The Southern Gothic style is one that employs the use
of macabre and ironic events to examine the values of
the American South.
“The colors of American Gothic literature are overwhelmingly
autumnal. All American Gothic culture seems tinted by the
dank browns of barren trees and wood planked ghost towns,
the cracking white paint of old southern mansions and Texas
Chainsaw white picket fences, the rotting mold green of
decay, the oranges of dead leaves and collapsing pumpkins
and above all the grays of thick leaden skies. It is impossible to
imagine the American Gothic vision to contain the greens of
spring, the yellows of summer or the blues of sky and
reflective waters, unless they can be tainted.”
New American Gothic
Authors write New American Gothic rely on the use of
private worlds to weave their Gothic intrigue. As such,
the destruction of the family unit is commonplace in the
New American Gothic. The psyche becomes the setting
in the microcosms (small worlds) this particular brand of
horror creates. Typically, these stories have a sort of
"antihero“--an anxiety-riddled individual of little
admirable strength.
things that are familiar, but just
not quite right
entities that can
appear human at
times, but are
actually evil,
violent, or
dangerous at
their core, such
as the werewolf,
vampire, zombie,
and serial killer
the mechanism and
automation that rationalism
and logic lead to
Citations
Campbell, Donna M. (1997). Novel, Romance, and Gothic: Brief
Definitions. Literary Movements. Dept. of English, Washington State University. Web
3 August 2012 from http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/novel.htm
Gothic Architecture (2002). The Gothic Experience. Annenberg Foundation.
Web 3 August 2012 from http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/
melani/gothic/gothic.html
Gothic Undercurrents. American Passages. Web 3 August 2012. retrieved from
http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit06/instructor.html/
Harris, Robert. “Elements of the Gothic Novel.” VirtualSalt. 22 Nov. 2011. Web 3 August
2012 from http://www.virtualsalt.com/gothic.htm